Hong Kong--International aid groups and governments escalated efforts to dispatch rescuers and supplies to earthquake-hit Nepal on Sunday, but severed communications and landslides in the Himalayan nation posed formidable challenges to the relief effort.
As the death toll passed 1,800, the US together with several European and Asian nations sent emergency crews to reinforce those scrambling to find survivors in the devastated capital, Kathmandu, and rural areas cut off by blocked roads and patchy phone networks.
"Roads have been damaged or blocked by landslides and communication lines are down, preventing us from reaching local Red Cross branches to get accurate information," said Jagan Chapagain, Asia Pacific director of the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC).
The IFRC said it was extremely concerned about the fate of rural villages close to the epicentre of the quake, some 80 kilometres (50 miles) from Kathmandu.
"We anticipate that there will be considerable destruction and loss of life," Chapaign added.
Other aid organisations responding to the emergency also struggled to assess requirements across the nation, and spoke of the fearsome effects of the quake.
"We witnessed terrible scenes of destruction -- hospitals were evacuated with patients being treated on the ground outside, homes and buildings demolished and some roads cracked wide open," said Eleanor Trinchera, Caritas Australia Program Coordinator for Nepal.
Survivors slept in the open in Kathmandu overnight, braving the cold for fear of being crushed by the teetering ruins of buildings.
Hundreds of structures, including office blocks and a landmark nine-storey tower, crashed to the ground at around midday on Saturday when the 7.8-magnitude quake struck.
Meanwhile snowfalls on Saturday thwarted efforts to airlift survivors from an avalanche that hit part of Everest base camp, killing at least 17 people, although choppers started landing on Sunday.
AFP
